


Dragons

by IanPeriwinkle



Category: DCU (Comics), The Flash (Comics)
Genre: Billy playing card games, I don't even know why I wanted to write this, It's very different from my usual characterisation of him, Yu-Gi-Oh! - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-29
Updated: 2018-10-29
Packaged: 2019-08-09 11:34:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,916
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16449167
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IanPeriwinkle/pseuds/IanPeriwinkle
Summary: Billy Hong finds himself plagued by socialising and by demons.He manages to find a solution to at least one of those.





	Dragons

Billy Hong had always been somewhat of a problem child. Never in his behaviour – he was always a well-behaved child for his mother, and none of his teachers ever noted anything particularly _bad_ , although they had some suspicions about him.

Really, the trouble came from the Demon King Neron who happened to follow him around, wreaking havoc upon his personal life.

As a small child he was pretty scared of the green ghost-like figure that followed him around, but by the time he reached fourteen years old and was preparing to enter high school he was more irritated by it than anything else.

“Oh, buzz off,” Billy turned to scowl out his window at the demon pulling faces at him. Nobody else could see the apparitions that seemed to follow him everywhere, so he had to be wary of reacting to them around others. Luckily he was still at home, disdainfully contemplating the shirt that his new high school was forcing him to wear. Mindy had saved up with help from her parents to be able to send Billy to an exclusive private school, and as much as he appreciated their sacrifices over the years, he also desperately didn’t want to have to make his way past several public schools wearing his heavy, uncomfortable uniform every morning and night for the rest of his school career.

He dropped the shirt he’d been staring at and folded his arms across his chest. “I swear, all I want is _one day_ without you following me. Is that so much to ask?” The demon just grinned in response, and waggled its tongue around. Given that they never seemed to make a move on him anymore, Billy figured that they were just scouting him for Neron in case of a future attack. No imminent danger, but God, were they annoying.

Sighing, Billy flopped down on his bed and stared at the ceiling. He’d been nervous about starting high school for the whole Summer, one of his main concerns being the lesser demons that seemed to shadow his every step. He’d hoped that they’d stop stalking him once Neron had killed his father, but that just seemed to make it worse.

It’s not even that he couldn’t get rid of them with relative ease – all it took was quick little spell to dispel the lesser minions. Occasionally he might need to take a few minutes to properly banish them. It was more the fact that it happened continuously, and frequently in public spaces where he couldn’t do anything for fear of being seen as crazy by anyone who heard him. On more than one occasion in elementary school he’d been caught by a teacher or a classmate talking angrily at a blank space.  

At any rate, it wasn’t going to do him any good to dwell on it. He made quick work of ridding himself of his demon stalker, and with a final sneer at his shirt, left his room.

Mindy had decided to, once he’d finally reached fourteen years of age and become settled in his isolating tendencies, start pressuring him to do social activities. “It’s not doing you any good, staying home alone,” She’d told him, thrusting some flyers of various clubs around the city in his face. “Do something social – make some friends!”

At first he’d resisted, but after a few weeks of Mindy pressuring, nagging, and eventually, guilting, Billy had given in and decided to join one of the clubs that was offered by a local gaming store. He’d recognised the logo before anything else – _Yu-Gi-Oh!_ , which he’d watched as a kid before deciding he was “too grown up and important” to involve himself with silly children’s cartoons. Apparently there was an actual game, and the store held tournaments on the weekends as well as classes for people who’d never played before.

It was his second week going now – he had taught himself how to play during the week (YouTube was, he firmly believed, the best invention of the 21st Century), after his failure at his first attendance, and he was hoping to have a few wins with his fairly meagre deck.

“Bye, Mom!” He called.

* * *

 

“Hey,” Billy winced, and tried to ignore the man who’d just walked up behind him, “it was Billy, right?” He tentatively reached out to pat Billy’s shoulder, but flinched back when the boy tensed.

“Yes,” Billy responded cautiously. He finished zipping up his backpack and pulled it on before turning to face the man who’d approached him. “And you’re Will. You run the classes,”

He beamed in response, and Billy felt a pang of fear. Well-adjusted people always made him feel terrified – more so than any demon could.

“That’s right! It’s been good to have you here,” He held out a hand, presumably to shake, but pulled it back with an awkward smile when Billy just stared at it. “Anyway, I just wanted to check if you’re coming back next week,” His hands shifted to sit on his hips, “You did a lot better this week! I was impressed.”

Billy scowled at the floor and took a quick step back. “I lost,” He muttered, “to a child.”

“Well, yeah,” Will’s awkward smile stayed in place, “She’s been playing for longer than you. We’re not here to win, we’re here to learn a game and have a fun time,” His smile grew a bit again, and Billy felt his mood sink even further.

He had actually been enjoying the game – but he couldn’t explain to Will why he couldn’t come back. Why, in the middle of that game, he’d started looking off into the distance and stopped paying proper attention to the game.

He shifted from foot to foot awkwardly, before looking towards the door (and pointedly away from Will’s earnest face). “Listen, Will, thank you, but –”

“You’ve gotta go now, I get it,” Billy looked up at him, “come back next week. You can’t give up after two weeks,”

Billy really didn’t have a response for that. He nodded, shuffled quietly on the spot again, and then left as quickly as he could.

* * *

 

“But _Mo-om_ ,” Billy sank heavily into the couch and crossed his arms. “I can’t go back –”

“I don’t want to hear it, Mister Man,” Mindy folded her arms in perfect replication of her son, “You _are_ going back to that club today, and you’re going to have a good time.”

“But Mom, I can’t,” He huffed, “Last time I went –”

“A demon followed you and was staring at you and threatening and you don’t want anyone else to get hurt,” Mindy finished with an exasperated sigh, “I know. You’ve said. And I get it, Billy – I really do. But you can’t just run away every time they follow you somewhere. They’re going to follow you regardless – it’s about time you either found a permanent solution or learned to live with it!”

Billy scowled at his mother and sunk further into the cushions. “If I go they’ll _die_ ,” He insisted. “Just like Dad.”

A flicker of grief crossed Mindy’s face before it settled into a scowl almost identical to Billy’s. The two of them were remarkably alike, all the way down to the stubbornness.

“Don’t bring him into this. You know that had nothing to do with you,”

“ _Yes it did,_ ” Billy insisted. “It had everything to do with me – why else would Neron target him?”

Mindy rolled her eyes and cursed her son in Zhutanese. Billy was slightly offended that he’d never learned to swear in it, otherwise he’d be able to make a retort.

“Your father had a history with Neron before he even knew you existed,” She explained, “trust me. It was nothing to do with you. Now go play your card game,” She grabbed his backpack from where she’d set it down when this conversation had begun and handed it to him.

Billy snatched it from her and grumbled quietly to himself, but ultimately ended up standing and grabbing his bike.

It was a pretty short ride to the store, thankfully. Billy regretted not wearing sunscreen, though – he rubbed the painful burn on his neck as he stalked in again. It seemed to be much the same crowd as the last two times he’d been. The little girl he’d lost to last week waved, and he struggled to give a small wave back. After detailing his encounter with Will to his mother he’d been given a crash-course on basic human interaction, as well as receiving plenty of affectionate admonitions.

She beamed in response, so he figured he’d done the right thing this time.

“Hi, Billy,” Will’s voice boomed behind him, and Billy turned with a sheepish smile.

“Hi, Will,” He nodded in greeting.

Will was smiling like he might die if he stopped again. It still made Billy pretty uncomfortable, but apparently it was normal to try and hide that.

“It’s good you came back,” This time Billy didn’t flinch away when Will clapped his shoulder, “I think you’ll really have fun this time,”

“Oh, I liked it well enough last time. I was just… distracted.” Billy tried to smile, but it had never really suited him. His mouth slipped back into its usual resting frown.

Will nodded as if he understood. “I get that,” He told Billy, “It happens. Don’t worry about it,”

“Yeah,” Billy avoided eye contact, “It does, doesn’t it?”

They stood awkwardly for a minute, before Will rushed off to answer someone’s question, leaving Billy able to sneak his way to a wall and plant himself firmly against it. He may not have been able to avoid going, but he _could_ minimise his interactions to protect people.

He made sure to avoid eye contact with any of the other people in the room, instead choosing to listen to them mingle amongst themselves until it was time to play. A few people attempted to come up and talk to him, and he was perfectly polite to them as per his mother’s instructions, but he remained impersonal to put them off, and they all ended up leaving him after a minute or two.

Yes. The perfect plan. If he _had_ to keep attending to keep his mother happy, at the very least he could distance himself from everyone there. It would be fine.

But as he watched the players set up for games and draw lots, he felt somewhat of an urge to actually join in. He’d _really_ enjoyed playing – he’d even spent a few quiet moments, not that he’d ever admit it, plotting out a strategy and researching what cards to look out for.

“Oh, fine,” He muttered under his breath, “I’ll do it.”

* * *

 

It wasn’t even five minutes into the game that Billy noticed one of the lesser demons watching him from a corner. He scowled at it, but quickly schooled his features back into what he hoped was a plain expression, and turned back to the game.

For its part, this demon wasn’t a particularly bothersome one. It was just watching him. It was unnerving, but he’d dealt with worse so it was pretty easy to ignore.

Billy actually won his first match. And his second. He was doing pretty well, and enjoying himself a lot. He even ended up forgetting about the demon in the corner for a little while.

Eventually he did lose a match, and he hung back to watch some of the others continue on, while making sure to keep watch of his friend in the corner. Once he’d separated himself from most of the crowd it had hovered closer to him, but still hadn’t made any moves to indicate action.

He continued to be wary of it as the games wrapped up. He stopped to talk to Will again, all the while watching the demon, hovering just a few metres away from him. He even got outside to his bike without any hassle, and planned to ride a few streets away until he found a quiet alley to take care of the demon in.

It wasn’t until he was riding alone that the demon decided to make its move. Billy suddenly found himself surrounded by a few of them, and he pulled up, turning around to see all of them.

“Six? Really?” He eyed them wearily, “That’s an awful lot of you for a scouting mission. What’s Neron up to tonight?”

They floated around him, emitting their signature green glow. Billy scowled, and lay his bike down gently on the ground. There were too many of them to take care of with his usual method. And he didn’t have any of the supplies he needed to complete a banishing ritual. They were all in a spell-kit he’d prepared for specifically for it – buried beneath his bed where he kept most of his magical tools.

While they were just floating around him, Billy decided the best course of action was probably to get his mother’s help.

She’d done her best since finding out about Billy’s gifts to protect him and teach him everything about magic that she could. Unfortunately, she sometimes fell a little short – but she always made sure there were other people to take over his tutelage in those instances.

He quickly sent her a text with his location and what he needed, and sat down on the sidewalk. Mindy was quick to reassure him and promised to be there in under five minutes – which worried Billy a little, honestly. They lived at least a ten-minute drive from there.

“Alright,” He addressed the demon from earlier, “Since you don’t seem to be attacking or anything, mind if I do something else to bide the time?” He took the continued silence as permission to go ahead.

He reached into his backpack and pulled out his deck of _Yu-Gi-Oh!_ cards, and began looking through them quietly. He’d started watching one of the variations of the show again recently (in private, at night, when his mother couldn’t hear and make assumptions about his budding interests), and was surprised at how misleading they were about the power of the cards in the show as compared to the game.

But thinking about the show _was_ giving him some ideas.

He sifted through his deck until he found the card he wanted – _The Acrobatic Magician_ – and threw it down on the ground in front of him. It had been a while since he’d practiced the voice, but he put on his best imitation of James Jesse’s booming performer’s voice. “I Summon _The Acrobatic Magician_!” And he cast a small illusion – something he’d mastered as a child and barely worked on since – of the character drawn on the card.

It didn’t have too much of an impact on the demons. They looked at it briefly before turning back to him with a questioning gaze.

“Well, it’s not as if I expected that to work,” He told them (although he was a _little_ disappointed that they’d barely even reacted).

He continued going through his deck doing this, waiting for something to draw a reaction. It seemed like nothing would, though – they just tended to stare, occasionally floating a little closer or a little further away.

That is, until he pulled an _Alexandrite Dragon_ from his deck and flung it down. The demons reeled back, releasing a hissing sound that he’d never heard from them before. Billy’s eyes widened as he observed them, then looked down at the card and pondered it. After a few moments of thought, he decided to play around a little with his illusion, and started making it grow, until it was around the same height as he was sitting at.

The demons kept backing away as it grew, and stopped when it did, and looked at Billy. He felt an unease within their glare, and took their fear to his advantage. The illusion started moving slowly – it was a careful art, trying to keep the image realistic enough, and Billy took note of which areas clipped or faltered (he noted that the tail, especially, did not move as smoothly as he needed it to), but no matter the mistakes, the demons seemed to fear it anyway.

They looked between each other slowly, still hissing, and eventually the one Billy assumed to be the leader started fading into nothingness.

The rest followed suit straight after, and Billy felt relieved when the final one was completely gone. He started picking up the cards after disappearing his illusion and putting them back into their holder, only looking up when he heard his mother’s car screech to a halt in front of him. Mindy came barreling out, bag in tow, and tackled Billy to the ground in a hug.

“ _Mo-om_ ,” He whined, “You’re too late – I already got rid of them,” She pulled back and Billy sat up, looking at her sheepishly.

“So you’re telling me,” Mindy started, “that you called me here after I’ve had a long day at work, while I’m in the middle of cooking dinner for us, and I rushed all the way here speeding, only to find you safe and sound?”

Billy nodded quietly, sure that he was going to be chided for bothering her. He was surprised when Mindy ended up pulling him in for another overly tight hug.

“I’m so glad you called me, Billy,” She said, nearly crushing him, “You can always call me for help. _Always_.”

“ _Fine_ , Mom – I get it,” Billy pulled away, laughing, “There’s no need to kill me, though,”

**Author's Note:**

> This is pretty shit. I just wanted to get it done. There is actually a follow-up I want to do as well. 
> 
> Who knows? Maybe I'll look over it one day and fix it when I'm feeling less depressed.


End file.
